The Tales of the Estuary

An incredible experience lying at the frontier of fiction and reality

In october 2013, the most ambitious French transmedia adventure took place in Nantes

It was a major challenge : creating, producing and releasing in the city of Nantes 7 fantastic tales on 7 different media (cinema, web, television, mobile, story book, radio fiction and live readings) for a 3-days event : from October 25 to October 27, 2013.

A missing writer, a spreading curse, a bunch of artists involved in a crazy project...and tales that come alive in every corner of the city. The Estuary Tales created a storyworld where fiction and reality intertwined, offering the public an occasion to discover Nantes from a new point of view through one or more of those amazing stories.

A police investigation on the internet, a TV show invaded by zombies, a century flood related on the radio, a Jules Verne-like adventure on mobile phone, and many other stories created by Arkham sur Loire and Le Crabe Fantôme took the audience on a dreadful path in the depths of the city.

A strong narrative bond

Everything starts during the summer of 2013 : rumour has it that Guillaume Flahaut, the “French Lovecraft”, is working on his masterpiece... But he mysteriously disappears. Young journalist Emily-Jane Salvat, fan and specialist of the writer’s works, discovers his “Tales of the Estuary” manuscript . Yet, she could not imagine what she had gone into...

A collaborative project

Delphine Bretesché and Jérôme Fihey, active members of the Arkham sur Loire not-profit organization are the creators of The Tales of the Estuary. They are passionate storytellers and that’s why they imagined those 7 tales taking place in the city of Jules Verne, birthplace of imaginary and fantastic worlds. For them “the adventure of The Tales of the Estuary is the jubilation of giving life to our imaginary territories. We are happy to invite the public into a collective experience based on this childish game of wanting to be afraid”

The City of Nantes supported the project from the beginning and that’s how they talked about it : “It fits within the workds of Jules Verne, Edgar Poe and other great writers of fantastic litterature and science-fiction and is anchored in the estuairian imaginary world. It keeps the link between Nantes and its rivers alive and highlights the history of the city in an original way. (...) It represents an ambitious cultural offer for all the inhabitants no matter their age or their cultural and social background and federates a great number of actors of the local culture.”

Report of activities

The Tales of the Estuary was a crazy and ambitious project, but thanks to the efforts of our colleagues and partners it was a success, combining the enhancement of the Nantes area and job creation.

The Tales of the Estuary : Facts and Figures

Global budget : 300 000 €, out of which 130 000 € in subsidy

115 people worked on this project on 150 different positions
88 of which were payed jobs and around 2000 working hours were paid

During the event’s evenings, 3 tales were released on 6 different locations (4 were sold out).

1 272 people attended to at least one tale

75 online and printed press articles mentionned The Tales of the Estuary

12 interviews of the members of Arkham sur Loire were given on radio or television

427 fans on Arkham sur Loire Facebook page, out of which 259 live in Nantes and 41 in Paris

75 729 people saw the publications on the Arkham sur Loire Facebook page between October 21 and October 27.

110 followers on Emily-Jane Salvat’s Twitter

The non-profit organization Arkham sur Loire hopes that this event was only the first of a long series and is now preparing its future projects.